


Breath and heartbeat

by Derin



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-31
Updated: 2014-03-31
Packaged: 2018-01-17 17:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1396381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Derin/pseuds/Derin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon wakes up in unfamiliar surroundings, with people who want information.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was dark when Simon woke. The sound of the engine was comforting, and he closed his eyes once more, secure in his little ship quarters.

No, that was wrong. The engine sounded wrong. There was a breeze. Why was there a breeze?

“River!” He'd been with River, where was River? Still half-asleep, Simon jumped down off the bed. The floor was a lot closer than he'd expected, and his feet entangled in a single, thin blanket; his own weight threw him forward and he smacked against a steel wall.

The wall was cool, and the engine hum both comforting in its presence and disconcerting in its unfamiliarity. He disentangled himself and felt his way along the wall, feeling out the room. Vaguely rectangular, about one and a half times as long as his body and just wide enough for him to stretch out one arm and tough the wall from the edge of the bed. It wasn't high enough to stand up in properly, and he had to crouch. Apart from the narrow bed, there was a toilet at one end of the room, a small sink with water that seemed drinkable, and the blanket he'd been entangled in. There was the little grate on the wall. Its minimal breeze smelled of grease. No sound but the sound of an engine.

Right, Injuries. Bumps, bruises. What felt like a burn along his right shoulder, superficial it seemed. The shoulder hurt but seemed to have a full range of motion. Bones moved fine, muscles moved fine. A dull ache under a bandage around his torso; the pain suggested a muscular injury near the spine. Bandage... he'd received some basic medical treatment, but not the kind of high-end medical treatment that the Alliance would use if they were inclined to treat him at all. Good. That was a good sign. It was too dark to tell whether the bandage was clean or how severe the injury was. He was dressed in the clothing he'd been wearing when they boarded, so far as he could tell in the darkness, although all his tools had been taken from him.

When they boarded. Boarded the ship chasing the distress signal sent by Kaylee. He wasn't supposed to be there, he was a doctor, River wasn't supposed to be there, but they'd been so short on hands...

Kaylee.... had they rescued Kaylee? And River! River had been with him!

“River!” he screamed, and immediately regretted it as his own voice reverberated back at him from the metal walls, each echo sounding like an accusation. He pushed his ear against the grate, the only gap in the room, in the vain hope of hearing something over the engine hum. Nothing.

Simon was hungry. He felt his way to the sink and drank water from cupped hands in the hope of temporarily quelling the feeling. He wasn't dangerously hungry, it was barely painful; it felt like perhaps a day's fasting. But without knowing where he was, it was impossible to know if that was going to be a problem or not.

His captors obviously wanted him alive. He could take comfort in that fact.

But alive for what?

Probably not Alliance, the accommodations and treatment he'd received didn't fit with Alliance. Slavers? Maybe. What had they been rescuing Kaylee from? That would probably be who had him. What had they been rescuing her from? What was she even doing on another ship, alone like that? Why couldn't he remember?

Was River alone like him? Was she panicking? _He_ was panicking, and she had brain damage, as well as a lot of bad memories. She wouldn't get herself hurt, would she? He drew his knees up against his body in an entirely un-doctor-like pose, and rested his head on them. “It's okay, mei-mei,” he murmured. “I'll find you. I always find you. It's going to be okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

It was bright when Simon woke. He'd been unable to find a door to his quarters, and as it turned out that this was because it was a little hatch in the roof. The noise of it opening woke him, and light from above shone directly into his eyes. He squinted against it, trying to resolve the vague shapes moving above him.

Arms reached down and pulled him out. He didn't resist. What was he going to do, fight to stay inside the tiny room forever?

They dragged him up, out, and his vision soon cleared enough to make them out as four people dressed head-to-toe in black, with no insignia or identifying markers. His hands were quickly locked behind him. No real chance of escape; best make use of the moment to gather information. He was indeed dressed as he'd been when they'd gone to rescue Kaylee, but his clothing wasn't in good condition at all, all shredded and filthy. It must have been a rather intense fight.

The room they'd pulled him into was huge and white. The floor was covered in little hatches, all labelled with an identification code. He memorised his own: JC-1472. Was his sister under one of those hatches?

The figures half-dragged him into an adjoining room, a small room with a single, solid chair in the middle, firmly attached to the floor. The lighting was dim compared to the main room, but he could make out the straps on it. Even before they threw him into it and started strapping him down, he could tell that they were well-placed, designed to push against joins in a way that wouldn't allow the occupant to gain any kind of leverage to struggle. He tried to pull away, to run (to where, though?) as they strapped him down, but one punched him in the back and pain shot up and down his spine, paralysing him for a few crucial seconds.

Perhaps that injury _wasn't_ minor. That could be a problem.

But Simon's more immediate problem was, well, the fact that he was immobilised in a room full of four black-clad captors who clearly didn't have good wishes for him. They moved behind the chair, and he couldn't turn his head to keep them in view.

It was kind of hard to think. Kind of hard to stay aware. To do anything. He just wanted to sleep. Maybe have a meal first. And get his sister back. Be back on the Serenity. Yeah, that would be good. Simon closed his eyes.

They flew open again as a jolt of electricity moved up his left arm and through his body. Another cloth-clad figure was standing there, this one in pale grey. It pulled its hand away from his arm, and he glimpsed something shiny and metallic in its grasp.

“Tell me about Malcolm Reynolds,” the figure rasped. Simon couldn't put an age, gender or system to the voice. He also knew better than to sing like a canary over a little electric shock. He kept quiet.

It shocked him again. “Tell me about Malcolm Reynolds.”

Simon blinked at the figure blearily. Mal? Out of everything, why would it care about _Mal_?

Simon knew that the captain was bound to have a lot of enemies, sure. But he'd never picked any of them as the kind to capture and torture people for vague information on him, especially since Mal had been boarding the ship with them – if they had Simon, they either had Mal, or would've seen him flee. 'Tell me where Mal is'? Sure, he could envision somebody asking him that with a glorified cattle prod. Or even just hurt Mal's crew for revenge for some slight, he'd seen that before. But 'tell me about Malcolm Reynolds'? That sounded like they wanted something more than to just catch or punish the captain. But what did they want to know? And why did they assume that Simon would know?

The next shock was to his throat.

Simon's throat seized up and for several seconds, he didn't breathe. But he needed something, there was a hunger, a new hunger... air, air. He dragged another breath into his throat.

“Tell me about Malcolm Reynolds.”

_It's a little hard to talk if you shock me in the throat, moron._ Simon took another breath. Shock to the temple. Shock to the eye.

“Tell me about Malcolm Reynolds.”

Simon didn't say a thing. He groaned a bit. He screamed a lot. He sobbed. He didn't talk.

After... hours, maybe? Or was it only one?... the grey figure seemed to give up, and the black figures dragged him back to his little room. His muscles didn't work properly, and struggling was impossible as they dropped him in and closed the hatch, leaving him in complete darkness. He fell heavily on the floor and felt his lip split, tasted blood.

After a little while, he crawled his way up the wall and leaned against it, the engine humming into his skull. Kaylee had always spoken of the sound of Serenity's engines as if they were the breath and heartbeat of the ship. Was she there, in one of the little rooms, listening to this new ship, missing her own?

No, Kaylee would find a way out, find a way to make the ship her own. And River... River would find a way out, somehow. They'd hurt her, they'd broken her, but when things got bad River seemed to dance with the universe itself and simply move to when and where she was needed...

That was a strange sentence to think. Delerium. Minor, probably. A natural enough thing, given his situation. Hunger, torture, probably sleep deprivation. Was that sleep deprivation? He'd had plenty of time to sleep, so... malnutrition making him feel fatigued, perhaps? Unless, unless, unless... unless the total darkness, the monotonous sounds, the smell of grease masking everything else, the sensory deprivation, unless the sensory deprivation was interfering with his sense of time. Unless he had trouble sensing time. Maybe he wasn't sleeping. Or maybe he wasn't sleeping enough. Or the, the, the water, maybe the water was drugged, maybe he was starving, maybe it was an infection; did he feel hot, or was it hot? Maybe...

Simon sat on the bed and tried to force himself to calm down. There was nothing more frustrating than a mind that didn't work properly, but he had the tools he had, and if they were broken, then they were broken. So. What did he know? What could he do?

Infection? Perhaps. Sleep deprivation? Probably. Hunger? Definitely. And, of course, sensory deprivation and pain. The deprivation made the pain worse. What could he expect?

Hallucinations, probably. Even more trouble sleeping. Fever if there was an infection, but otherwise, no. What could he do? Stay hydrated, he had to stay hydrated. He crawled to the sink and forced himself to gulp down handfuls of water.

Right. Prevent infection. He stripped off his filthy clothing and sluices water from the sink down his body, pushing off dirt and sweat and blood from little scratches. He didn't dare touch the bandaged wound or get it wet. It was the big concern, but in the dark with limited resources... no, he'd just make it worse.

_Tell me about Malcolm Reynolds._

Why?

_Why?!_


	3. Chapter 3

He supposed that it was the next day that the hatch opened again. A day cycle would make sense.

He was hungry, really hungry. It was hard to remember to drink water. It was hard to listen to his sense of thirst under everything else, and hard to keep time and drink regularly, and hard to remember anything. It was impossible to fight. They strapped him into the chair. The grey figure appeared. This time it had something else, a little metal tool that looked like a nutcracker.

“Tell me about Zoe Washburne.”

Zoe? Why Zoe? What did he remember about Zoe? She was... well, Zoe. Mal and Zoe had both been in the military. Was that it? That must be it.

Simon blinked at the figure. He said nothing.

The figure put the nutcracker-looking thing over the end of Simon's left pointer finger, and closed it. Through blinding pain, he felt bone snap.

_Crunch._

Simon screamed.

The tool went over his next finger. “Tell me about Zoe Washburne.”

“I don't know! I don't know what you want!”

_Crunch._

“I don't know!”

Left big toe. _Crunch_. Right little finger. _Crunch_.

“Tell me about Zoe Washburne.”

“I don't know! Zoe is Zoe!”

Who _was_ Zoe? A face, he remembered a face. Dark skin. A smile. A kiss, not a kiss for him, a kiss for her husband. Yes.

“She's married. She's good with a gun. She... she's second-in-command, she...”

_Crunch_. Right middle toe.

“Tell me about Zoe Washburne.”

“I don't know what you want to know!”

It couldn't have taken as long as it felt, because Simon had a limited number of fingers and toes. They broke eleven. Five toes, four fingers. They had to drag him back to the little room.

He tried to break his fall down with his hands. That was a mistake.

Blood, there was blood, there had definitely been blood, and that was a problem. The water in the ship might be sterile, but it might not be. And if it wasn't he was a walking infection risk. It was dangerous to drink, it was dangerous to move, it was dangerous to do anything.

Think. Think.

He couldn't think.

“Simon!” River's voice rang throughout the room.

“River? River!” he screamed back. “River!” _Auditory hallucination. Probably visual hallucinations soon. Most likely nightmarish._ He didn't care though; what if it was real? What if she could hear him? “River! River!”

He didn't hear it again.

Maybe if he got hungrier, maybe if they hurt him more... maybe he could hear her voice again.


	4. Chapter 4

It must have been a day later, because they opened the hatch. A day cycle would make the most sense. But they didn't pull him out. They gave him a small protein bar, which he unwrapped with teeth and his remaining unbroken fingers and chewed and swallowed hurriedly knowing that eating something so heavy on an empty stomach was a bad idea.

Think. Try to think.

He was going to die. That was a given. They'd treated his wounds before he woke, but the ones he'd acquired since had simply been left. Two options: he _would_ die under torture. Or he _would_ die of infection.

He remembered being sure that somebody would save him. But he didn't remember why he thought that. His surgeon friends couldn't take on such an enemy, and why would they? Why would he be in a position to need saving? His parents, they'd said they wouldn't pay again, not to get him out again. Too many chances. He'd run out of chances to save River.

Why was he saving River?

The letters, the letters. She'd been in trouble. They'd been hurting her. But there'd been those people, there'd been an exchange of money, she'd been there in his arms, she...

Why was River in trouble again?

The engine hummed in the dark, the breath and heartbeat of the ship. (Why would he think such a thing about a machine? Delirium, had to be the delirium.) His condition would only worsen. There was nothing to wait for. So he needed to act immediately.

But he just wanted to sleep. To lie back and find serenity. Serenity, Serenity. He needed to get out. Get to Serenity. Get River.

Right. Hatch.

He tried to force it open, without much hope for success. He'd been right not to hope. He had no chance of opening it, no chance. There was no way out, no way; he was trapped in the dark, airless little...

Not airless...

The grate, the grate, the grate... he felt about the grate, the grate in the wall; but he had nothing to undo the screws with. How could he get it out? How?

He felt around until he found the shirt he'd discarded and, with his teeth, tore strips from it. He wove these between the bards of the grate, looped them over his forearm, and pit all his weight against them.

He almost fell over as the grate pulled easily from the wall.

Right. The grate. But he was too wide, it was too small. Shoulders, human shoulders were the widest. If you could get your shoulders in something, you could get everything else in.

His shoulders would just have to fit, then.

His left hand had the least working fingers, was the most useless. That one would do. He bent his left arm just right and put his weight against it. The shoulder dislocated easily, far more easily than he would have expected. He must be having trouble predicting force. Or remembering how the body worked. One of those things.

Simon crawled into the grate and pushed himself along.

The engine was everywhere, everywhere, it was dark, the smell of grease was overpowering... it wasn't that much different to his room, actually. Just very, very confined. He pushed forward with his feet, pulled forward with his good arm, while his left arm was just forced forward before him like so much dead weight. Pain had stopped meaning anything. He couldn't feel it any more.

That was a bad sign.

Other grates, little grates. Darkness. Whimpering. Real, or a hallucination? The fat, thick-furred rat ahead, cartoonishly brown and nibbling on crumbs in the vent, that was a hallucination, wasn't it? Because it was dark. Too dark to see the rat. The face, the face through the grates... too dark to see that.

_River, River_. Where? Which way? He moved forward, hit a divide. Normally, mapping a vent system as he moved through it probably wouldn't be too big a problem, but in his current condition, he kept forgetting he was _in_ a vent system. How would he find River?

The hatches, the hatches were labelled on top. Find the code. Find the code. Or just, just open them all, one after another. Find River.

Get out. Get up, into the big room, the bright room.

How?

Grease. The smell of grease meant... an engine, probably. Kaylee, smiling, going on about some engineering detail, hand running lovingly over Serenity. Jayne rolling his eyes with a curt remark, leaving the room. The engine, humming through the vents.

Sound... could he locate the sound?

Simon moved through the vents, trying to follow the sound of the engine. He had no idea whether he was succeeding or whether it was sheer dumb luck, but eventually, a grate didn't lead to a little cell but to a big room, dimply lit and full of noise and movement. He pushed, pushed against the grate.

It was stuck.

He leaned against the grate. No leverage. One arm was dead weight. So many broken bones, broken bones that could no longer even feel agony as he forced them to move. And no strength left.

Simon pushed against the grate, locked firmly in place. And he wept.

He slept.

“I keep telling you, he can't take the stress. He's useless. We should use the girl.”

Simon opened his eyes, but couldn't summon the strength to move. Two black-clad figures had removed the grate and were in the engine room just in front of him, talking.

“The girl has extensive brain damage. He is her brother. He should have enough potential, at least.”

“He's taken five days and got stuck in a vent. _Again_. Face it, he can't take the strain.”

“Let me run the scenario again. It's the crew of his ship, they're the wrong targets. Let me try with his parents.”

“After all this, I'm not sure he'd remember who his parents are. By the time you've proven he can take it, there won't be any of him left.”

“If he is useless anyway, then we have nothing to lose.”

“Except time.” The figure sighed. “Fine. Drug him, erase the memory, heal the bones. We'll run the test again.”


End file.
